Texas, now unranked, faces gritty UCF in early ‘must win’ clash
The first two weeks of the Big 12 Conference schedule was supposed to be the “easy” part of the league gauntlet for Texas, with the Longhorns playing four straight unranked teams, two of them at home – where they started the 2023-24 season with nine straight wins.
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Now the Longhorns are looking to pick up the pieces and break even over that “softer” stretch as they seek some answers and try to get back on the winning track when hosting gritty league newcomer UCF on Wednesday at Moody Center in Austin.
The Longhorns (12-4, 1-2 in Big 12 play) return home after a conference road trip that saw them beat Cincinnati on a late jumper by Max Abmas on Tuesday and then lose 76-73 at West Virginia on Saturday despite a season-high 32 points from their sharp-shooting guard.
Abmas poured in seven 3-pointers in the loss to West Virginia. Dylan Disu added 18 points, 15 of them in the second half, before fouling out with 2:16 to play. Brock Cunningham also fouled out for the Longhorns, who committed 28 personal fouls resulting in 41 free throws for the Mountaineers. Texas also amassed a season-worst 22 turnovers and had trouble getting defensive stops when it needed them.
“There’s always a lot of growth with this team and this team still has a high ceiling,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said Tuesday. “We’re still working through playing with that urgency that you have to play with for 40 minutes on both ends of the floor. When we show we can do that we’ve been really good.”
Texas began the season 18th in the Associated Press poll and climbed to as high as 12th before falling out of the rankings for the first time this week. Wednesday’s contest against UCF comes against another unranked team but the Longhorns’ remaining four opponents in January are ranked in the Top 25.
That means the Longhorns have to find some answers – and find them in a hurry.
“We never get too high. We never get too low. We try to have an even keel,” Terry said. “A big game is the next game because it’s the game right in front of us and that’s the mentality we’ve always had. It’s really, you know, centered around our culture who we are.
“It’s just never easy (in the Big 12). On any given night, you gotta come and bring your ‘A’ game.”
The Knights (10-5, 1-2 Big 12) head to Austin after a 63-58 loss at home to then No. 18 BYU on Saturday. UCF’s defeat came days after a 63-60 home win over No. 3 Kansas, with the Knights’ showing against two of the nation’s top team an indication of their overall grit and talent.
Darius Johnson led UCF with 18 points in Saturday’s loss while Jaylin Sellers added 13 and Ibrahim Diallo racked up 11 points and a career-high 19 rebounds. The Knights made things close despite shooting 29 percent from the floor.
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“Our guys always give us an opportunity,” UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. “You’ll never see a team from UCF that doesn’t play with great energy and that gives us a chance because we keep fighting. It showed (against BYU), but we came up short.”
